AN EASY PILL TO SWALLOW:  Confronting the Root Causes of our Medical Malpractice Crisis and Vastly Improving our System and Quality of Care

ISSUE BRIEF from NC-Committee to Defend Health Care National Project on Universal Health Care Grassroots Work - Project EINO 

By Dennis Lazof, Ph.D. Director, Project EINO

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Short Description:

This brief discusses the root causes of the medical malpractice crisis in the U.S.A. which have been overlooked in the many editorials of recent of appearance. Dr. Lazof shows that fundamental solutions to this crisis could raise the quality of health care and resolve the scourge of uninsurance at the same time.

Summary

There have been a profusion of op-eds published recently discussing the grave crisis our nation faces due to out of control premiums for medical malpractice insurance. Several short-term fixes have been suggested and are being discussed in our federal and state legislatures. These patches to our chaotic health care system ignore the root causes of this uniquely American problem and fail to provide in any way for the very real need out of which malpractice lawsuits have originated and evolved.

In "An Easy Pill to Swallow" Dr. Lazof explains how rethinking our health care system and providing universal coverage, while we make our system publicly accountable and while we abolish the injustice of "health care for the priveleged", we could also strike against the root causes of the crisis of malpractice insurance which threatens the existence of needed facilities and expertise from coast to coast. Malpractice insurance and medical errors could be reasonably handled, as they are in other industrialized nations, all of which have universal health care. Our crisis is so terrible only because we assume that first and foremost the system exists to protect those reaping tremendous profits and only secondarily to provide care to some Americans.

Full document available as free download in Acrobat format  CLICK HERE